Journal/WPRI poll: Raimondo leads Fung in race for governor, many still undecided

Wednesday

Oct 15, 2014 at 12:01 AM

Gina Raimondo, the current state treasurer, was the choice of 41.8 percent of probable voters, compared with 35.6 percent favoring Cranston Mayor Allan Fung. The Moderate Party’s eleventh-hour candidate, Robert J. Healey Jr., drew 8.1 percent of the

Katherine Gregg Journal Political Writer kathyprojo

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- With three weeks to go before the Nov. 4 election, Democrat Gina Raimondo leads Republican rival Allan Fung in the race for governor by 6 percentage points, according to the latest Providence Journal/WPRI-12 poll.

Raimondo, the current state treasurer, was the choice of 41.8 percent of probable voters, compared with 35.6 percent favoring Cranston Mayor Fung. The Moderate Party’s eleventh-hour candidate, Robert J. Healey Jr., drew 8.1 percent of the potential vote, including a fair number of union voters in search of a candidate.

Another 12.1 percent were still undecided in the contest to succeed one-term Governor Chafee, while 1.6 percent refused to say. Less than 1 percent of the potential vote went to two independents, Kate L. Fletcher and Leon M. Kayarian, whose names will also appear on the ballot.

The telephone survey of 505 registered and likely Rhode Island voters was conducted by Fleming & Associates Oct. 6-9. The results for Raimondo closely mirrored those of a Sept. 20-Oct. 1 survey released over the weekend by The New York Times, CBS News and YouGov that had Raimondo up 41 percent to 38 percent.

But the Fleming poll was the first to look at Healey’s impact on the race since Sept. 11, when the Moderate Party designated the long-haired Cool Moose Party founder and candidate as a replacement for its original candidate for governor, the ailing James Spooner.

In looking at where Healey drew his numbers, veteran pollster Joseph Fleming said he was not surprised that the Rhode Island GOP fought its losing battle to convince the state elections board to keep Healey off the ballot.

Within union-member ranks, Fung led Raimondo 41.7 percent to 30.2 percent, despite his support for “right-to-work” laws that essentially prohibit the payment of union dues — and mandatory union membership — as a condition of employment.

But Healey drew off another 11.5 percent of the vote from those who described themselves as union members without distinguishing whether they belonged to a public or private union.

To Fleming, the numbers were clear as day: Healey is attracting voters in traditionally Democratic union ranks “who are saying they cannot vote for Gina, but they don’t want to vote for a Republican so they are voting for Healey. Now if Healey wasn’t in the race, and they don’t want to vote for Gina, they would have no choice but to vote for Allan Fung.”

Further evidence of the Healey effect: Raimondo leads Fung among independents, but just barely — 36.2 percent to 33.8 percent. Another 9 percent aligned with Healey.

The key here, says Fleming, is that almost one in five of these critical swing voters — 19 percent — say they have not decided who will get their vote.

In other words, Raimondo has held steady but hasn’t registered enough votes to win on any publicly released poll.

Two-thirds of the undecided voters in the race are independents. One in five independents say they have not yet decided who will get their vote, “and right now that is where the race is going to be, on who gets the undecided voters, the independent voters,” Fleming said.

“Gina is winning that group by about 2.4 percent right now, but that 19 percent…that is who they are going to be playing to for the next three weeks: the independent voters of Rhode Island.”

According to the secretary of state’s elections division, there are 315,455 registered Democrats, 83,177 registered Republicans, 1,935 registered Moderate Party voters, and 354,268 “unaffiliated” or independent voters.

Among the other findings: nearly two-thirds of the Raimondo and Fung backers say they are firmly committed to their candidate. Only 22.7 percent of Raimondo’s potential voters and 28.9 percent of Fung’s say there is still a “good chance” they might change their mind, while 39 percent of Healey’s backers said they might shift.

Voters have a favorable opinion of both Raimondo (58.2 percent) and Fung (63.6 percent), though he ranks 10 percentage points higher than she does among independents in this measure. Among union members, only 19 percent have an unfavorable view of Fung, while 56 percent have an unfavorable view of Raimondo.

Healey is viewed favorably by only 35.4 percent. Many others — 42.6 percent — had no opinion.

By comparison, Governor Chafee is viewed favorably by 36.4 percent of those surveyed, and unfavorably by 53.1 percent. The numbers reflect the political realities behind Chafee’s decision not to seek a second term.

The poll carries with it a potential margin of error of 4.38 percent, which means any of the numbers could be up — or down — by that much.

kgregg@providencejournal.com

(401) 277-7078

On Twitter: @kathyproj

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